Bereavement and divorce: Does the death of a child affect parents’ marital stability?

Abstract

What effect does the death of a child have on parents’ rate of divorce? This study answers this and related research questions on parental bereavement and divorce. In addition to estimating an excess risk of divorce for bereaved parents, I test whether there are differences in the bereavement effect on divorce risk by family size, time since bereavement, and whether the couple has had another child. Detailed longitudinal data on first marriages taken from administrative registers covering the entire population of Norway and discrete-time hazard models are used to estimate effects of a child’s death on divorce risk. Results show that bereaved parents have higher divorce rates than other parents. This difference is observed across several family sizes and strengthens somewhat over time. Post-bereavement fertility does not affect the increase in divorce risk.